“Too over the top,” Jane said, “and besides generic drugs are off strategy for this assignment.”

“Yeah, but they cost our clients billions in sales.”

Dick seldom overreaches.

No one hides lies and half-truths more cleverly. He buries them deep inside mostly true statements.

“Your turn,” Dick replied. “What’s your spin?”

“It’s the patriotic duty of God-fearing Americans to shell out twice as much for prescription drugs as Europeans do,” Jane said.

“And when those good, God-fearing folks complain about subsidizing countries richer than us?”

“We do Land of the Free, Home of the Brave!”

“No way they’ll buy that shit,” Dick said.

“They believed 2020 was stolen,” Jane replied.

She had the cabby keep the meter running.

”We’ll pay your retainer and out-of-pocket in cash. No questions asked. Destroy your receipts — we know it’s expensive to have friends.

“I’m the only contact you’ll have. No one will know you’re doing conspiracy work for us.

“Your first mission, if you accept it, Mrs. Doe, is to provide protection against school shootings.

”A SWAT team thing?” Jane asked.

The woman laughed. “You won’t be protecting children against AR-15s, Mrs. Doe. You’ll be paid to protect the gun makers that manufacture them.

“Teachers could step up and solve the problem if they cared enough.” Jane spit-balled.

“You just earned a signing bonus,” the woman replied. Their sidewalk encounter ended as quickly as it had begun.

“Ever bite the head off a live chicken, Mr. Doe?”

The impeccably dressed man who initiated the meeting at the Korean fusion place on 5th NE did not introduce himself by name.

“If you accept QAnon’s offer,” he said, “they’ll turn you into a carnival geek conning small-town rubes on the midway.

“You’re a force of nature, Mr. Doe.

“You’ve convinced millions of Americans that the most secure election in our history was stolen.

”We’re prepared to pay you handsomely to promote the idea that concentrating power in the hands of voters is not what the Founders had originally intended.

He paid in cash and left a gratuity meant for Dick to notice.

“Does Mrs. Doe like nice things?” He asked.

“Two thirds of them still say the election was stolen,” Jane said as she dug into her crab-cake Po’ boy.

“The ones in power know better but pretend they believe anyway,” Dick noted.

“It’s about avoiding primary challenges.”

“And ‘owning’ the libs.”

“Nobody does fear better than you do, Dicky.

“Pedophiles! Pedophiles! Pedophiles!”

”And nobody does inferiority like you do.”

“It‘s easy to get folks to look down on unwed mothers and immigrants who aren’t from Nordic countries.”

“I think you’ve found your calling,” Dick told Jane as he reached for a packet of horseradish.

“Move over George Orwell,” she laughed.